A sprite is anything that moves in a game (relatively to the terrain). An alien, a power-up, and a rocket are examples of sprites.

Michael Steinberg

09-07-2001, 06:57 AM

Isn't this word also connected to the old kind of bill-board stuff? Like 2D Aliens and 2D equipment etc?

harsman

09-07-2001, 06:59 AM

Usually though, when someone says sprite in a 3d-context they mean a 2d image, like a billboard. Basically, anything that wasn't background in the old 2d-games was a sprite. In the beginning people used to make a difference between sprites that were handled by special hardware so you didn't have to clear the background every frame, but no one cares anymore.

lobstah

09-07-2001, 07:16 AM

Many thanks for the replies. Sounds like sprites are now artifacts in graphics technology museums.

lobstah...

Michael Steinberg

09-07-2001, 08:35 AM

Oh, they aren't. for example unreal used them to simulate fire, or quake3 for the smoke of the rockets?

lobstah

09-07-2001, 11:01 AM

Hmmmm. So, technically speaking, what is a sprite? There are some great examples of how they are/were used, but why would I want to use them? At the moment, they are not tangible to me, like a texture or a poly.

DFrey

09-07-2001, 11:07 AM

Think of it this way then, a sprite is a textured poly that always faces the viewer, i.e. billboard.